Round Eighteen: Baby, You Can Drive My Car (Into A Number of Parked Cars)

Less than a month ago, the Magpie Army was flying high. They had just belted Adelaide, a week after completing a difficult away win against the top four Swans. They were then, as now, the only team to have beaten the all-conquering Cats. Given that they had come within five points of achieving the mother of all upsets against the same opposition in last year’s Preliminary Final, many pundits had them down as a genuine dark horse for the 2008 premiership. They just needed to secure the last top four position which, given the Swans’ shaky form, they seemed more than capable of doing. Then it all went horribly wrong. A second disappointing defeat for the season against the unfancied Kangaroos was followed by a wholly unexpected thumping at the hands of Essendon, a team Collingwood had summarily put to the sword by 12 goals on Anzac Day. Then the Magpies were made to look like second rate pretenders by the genuine item in Hawthorn (further details later in the Wrap). And the (seemingly) final nail was put in the coffin of the Pies’ 2008 season late on Sunday night.

The facts of the case are these, Your Honour. Despite the finals being imminent, the brothers Shaw and one Alan Didak decided to enjoy a classy night at Kew’s finest tavern, the Geebung Polo Club. Somewhat more than a few beverages later, the junior Shaw elected to drive home in a slightly weaving manner, predictably taking out dodgem car style a few innocent bystanders (mercifully in the form of parked cars) on the way. The police arrived to find Shaw Jr and Didak on the scene, but were informed (as was the footy club) that Didak had not been in the car but had rather been summoned by Shaw to assist in his hour of need. This, not surprisingly, turned out to be a packet of lies. Didak had indeed been in the car, for the second year in a row he had made a bad passenger-related decision. Unfortunately for Collingwood, and El Presidente Eddie McGuire in particular, the truth didn’t emerge until after all and sundry had sworn blind before the assembled media that the passenger had not been Didak but a “scaly mate” of Shaw Jr’s. Hell hath no fury like a high profile TV show host made to look like a schmuck. When the dust settled both Didak and Shaw Jr had been handled season-ending suspensions and comparatively light fines (Shaw Sr got two weeks for drinking while injured). The suspensions of two of the Pies’ top players mean that just making the finals is going to be a big ask now, let alone getting a top four spot. And the dark horse of premiership contention has been put behind a screen and shot. It seems more than likely that Alan Didak will not be at Collingwood next season, the only reason he wasn’t sacked would seem to be that the Pies think they can get something for him on the trading market at the end of the year. By all accounts President McGuire gave the playing group a fearsome spray on Monday, not a happy team at all are the Magpies.

Hawthorn, on the other hand, are a very happy team as their jaunty club song would attest. And they were singing it long and loud on Friday night after easily accounting for the hapless Pies. As ever forward Lance “Buddy” Franklin was the man to watch, booting a lazy eight while missing another half dozen. One of these days he’s going to learn to kick straight and will break the goals in a game record by half time. As it is he’s leading the Coleman Medal tally for both goals and behinds. Eight was the magic number once more the next day at the MCG, this time it was Bombers’ skipper Matthew Lloyd enjoying a day out. Lloyd’s heroics were the bright spot of an otherwise lacklustre match, the absolute highlight was Lloyd turning back the years, launching himself into the stratosphere and most probably securing the car for Mark of the Year. Drive sober, Lloydy! Dons by 16 points, and a most unlikely finals appearance is still an outside possibility. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIPGdAL1gLU&feature=related
Alive too are the finals prospects of North Melbourne, who fought out a gritty win against the rapidly faltering Lions in the Roos’ last ever “home game” on the Gold Coast. With the Roos’ departure, the “coast” (b’doom ching!) is now clear for the as yet un-monikered new side- Gold Coast Dugongs, anyone? The Roos are now very much in the mix for the last top four spot, although getting it is going to be something of a poisoned chalice as it involves coming up against Geelong in the first week of the finals. The Roos did just that last year and got absolutely annihilated. Brisbane, on the other hand, would probably be happy just to be involved in September after blowing yet another winnable game. As indeed would Richmond, who took the game up to the seemingly unbeatable Cats in the first half, but were comprehensively trounced in the second. Not that there’s any shame in that, Hawthorn is the only team to get anywhere near Geelong in the last couple of months. In yet another game involving potential finalists, Adelaide was able to hold off the fast finishing Carlton. Difficult now for the Blues to make it to September, they’ll need to win all of their remaining matches to have a shot one would think.
To the Sunday matches, and to the great joy of the public service there was AFL footy on at Historic Manuka Oval- the match of the round, no less! And conditions were absolutely superlative, perfect blue sky, ground in excellent nick and two teams in the top four with everything to play for. The Bulldogs and Swans both looked resplendent in their contrasting strips but it was the Swans who got off to a flyer with four unanswered goals in the first six minutes. It appeared as though a boilover was on the cards, particularly as the Dogs had lost their last two matches. However Dogs’ coach Rodney Eade (formerly at the helm of the Swans) was able to flick a switch and the Bulldogs put through eleven of the next twelve goals to go in comfortably ahead at the halftime break. The Swans then had the better of the third quarter, but the Dogs held them off and recorded a very valuable win. Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs are now all but certain to play each other in week one of the finals, what a cracker of a game that’s going to be. The Swans are still desperately clinging to fourth, but this was a rare defeat in their ACT home away from home. They’ll be looking to regain some form before the finals kick off.

To the last two games of Round 18 and down in Melbourne the Saints marched in in a close one against the massively underachieving Port Adelaide. It’s difficult to imagine how the Power made it to a Grand Final less than 12 months ago, they’ve never even looked like being a contender in 2008. The Saints though are still definitely in contention for that last top four spot. They were given extra motivation to have a real tilt for the title in the days following the Round’s conclusion by the announcement that the AFL’s oldest player Robert Harvey will hang up his boots at the end of this season. Harvey is an indisputable champion of the game, a back to back Brownlow Medallist and eight time all-Australian. He made his debut back in the old VFL in 1988- anyone remember World Expo ’88? Or the Seoul Olympics? Certainly not the copious number of players on AFL lists who weren’t even born in 1988! An amazing career, unlikely that anyone else is going to chalk up 21 seasons at the top level of such a physical game any time soon.
And historic retirements were the order of the day over in the west as well, as Freo’s final foundation player Sean McManus chose the latest version of Derby: Fully Loaded as the occasion for his final match. McManus has been there since day one of the Dockers’ long strange purple journey, through tragedy and disappointment, the bad moments and the frustrating. There haven’t been too many moments of actual success for Fremantle over the last fourteen seasons. However the two matches a season their long-suffering fans crave victory in are the two against West Coast, and this year the Dockers have won them both! So perhaps their season hasn’t been all bad after all. Their win saw them leapfrog Port Adelaide into fourth bottom, the Eagles’ are now rooted in the bottom two and still in danger of a first wooden spoon just two seasons after taking a (possibly substance-assisted) premiership.

So just four rounds to go in the 2008 home and away season for all bar those whose propensity to have a lager or two, drive in a less than confidence-inspiring manner and then play fast and loose with the truth have seen them banished to the sidelines. Drive carefully, all! And never, ever, make Eddie McGuire look foolish. Here’s a treat, a sneak preview of the AFL Grand Final pre-game entertainment for 2008. See you back here for the Round 19 Wrap next week.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31x2WpuSAkA

Round Thirteen: The Big Occasions

Although every home and away match is important, three or four times a year every club encounters the Big Occasion match. Often the occasion is a milestone match for a club favourite (case in point St Kilda's unlikely win over West Coast in Rob Harvey's 350th), sometimes it's a regular fixture like Anzac Day for Collingwood and Essendon or the Western Derby (which rhymes with Barbie or Herbie depending on your level of education)/ Showdown match for the Perth/Adelaide interlopers, and sometimes it's the result of something else entirely. One of the most memorable Big Occasion matches in recent years was Jason McCartney's return to AFL football after suffering horrendous injuries in the Bali Bombing, an unforgettably moving night for those who witnessed it. North rose to the occasion on that night, taking the four points over Richmond. The Roos were involved in a Big Occasion match of another kind around the same time when former captain and club champion Wayne Carey played his first game against them (for the Crows) after being drummed out of the club for cuckolding his vice-captain/best mate's wife. This time, despite no shortage of motivational material, the Roos were unable to get up and score a win (unlike Carey, who by all accounts had no problems either with getting it up or with scoring). So while teams generally do lift for the Big Occasion match, victory is by no means guaranteed.
Round Thirteen was significant in that there were no less than three Big Occasion matches, all for very different reasons. The Roos were yet again involved- their club legend, Norm Smith Medallist and Shinboner of the Century Glenn Archer was playing his 300th match against the Dogs, only the second Roo to achieve the 300 game milestone. Melbourne were farewelling their long-serving coach Neale Daniher after ten years and a Grand Final appearance against Essendon in 2000, ironically the team they were playing in Round 13 (and of course Daniher's former club). And all eyes were on the Collingwood-Hawthorn game, in particular on Magpie Alan Didak. Didak, as alluded to in last week's Wrap, had a fortnight earlier engaged in a big night out with the man who allegedly went on to become the CBD murderer, a night in which shots had been fired at police. How would Didak respond to the widespread public criticism of him for failing to report the eventful evening to the proper authorities, therefore potentially preventing the CBD triple shooting and the death of an innocent Melbourne solicitor?
The Round kicked off with the Dees-Dons game, and in the first quarter Melbourne failed dismally to raise to the moment as the Bombers ran rampant. However Daniher's last ever quarter time speech obviously inspired the Demons, as they fought back courageously to put themselves right back in the match. His last ever half-time and three quarter time speeches were obviously absolute belters as the Demons played all over Essendon and with only a minute or two to go were 17 points up and seemingly destined to send Daniher out on a high note. Unfortunately the Bombers hadn't read the script and put through a couple of late goals, including a Scott Lucas effort with 5 seconds on the clock, to take the match by just 2 points. Unbelievable. Essendon are doing their upmost to give their supporters heart attacks this season, their last four wins have been by 8 points (including a goal after the siren), 1 point, 1 point and now 2 points. Last year they would have lost all four. Go Dons!
Unlike Melbourne, the Carrararoos had no difficulty whatsoever in ensuring that Glenn Archer's 300th game was one to savour and never looked like going down to the Dogs. Roos forward Drew Petrie opened like a man possessed, kicking six first quarter goals before the shell-shocked Dogs were able to close him down. The only dampener on the match for North was that they were only able to get 39,000 to the match, another nail in the coffin of their chances of staying longterm in Melbourne. The poor crowd size made a mockery of the AFL's idiotic decision not to switch the game from the MCG to the Telstra Dome, where 50,000 odd Hawks and Magpies supporters squeezed in to see the match of the round (thousands more were unable to get in and watched it on TV- not Channel 7 of course). Didak, who was roundly booed every time he went near the ball, was unable to have any real effect for the Magpies and it was Hawthorn who took the points and were sitting pretty in the top two at the end of the round. Collingwood's hypocritical disciplinary policy has come in for a lot of stick over the past two seasons- important players like Tarrant (now departed), Johnson and Didak can seemingly commit regicide and remain in the team, whereas lesser lights cop suspensions for offences as pissweak as leaving the team hotel without permission for a walk around the block after an interstate win. Will be interesting to see whether this policy, which must surely be completely disastrous for team spirit and morale, is reviewed at the end of the season if the Pies fail in the finals again.
At the top of the table Geelong continued on its merry way with a straightforward home victory over Sydney, although a late Swans charge probably caused a heart flutter or two among the Swans faithful. The loss probably makes it impossible for Sydney to get a top four position, although only a fool would write them off just yet. Sydney are now level on points with pre-season premiership favourites Freo, who belted Carlton at Subiaco. Another player who has featured prominently in banner headlines for off-field incidents, publicans' scourge Brendan Fevola, may well have played his last match for the Blues after a petulant and ill-tempered display led to him receiving a one week ban from the club with the instruction to "go away and think about it". No doubt the club hopes that Fev is taking a good hard look at himself, will hopefully come back prepared to do the hard yards, straighten up and fly right and all the rest of that crap. But they'll probably just end up trading him to Fremantle.
Elsewhere the Eagles continued their recent dominance over the Crows by taking the points in Adelaide, ending a two game losing streak and keeping in touch with the top two in the process. Port ended Brisbane's chances of an unlikely finals appearance at the Gabba, although they had to withstand a mighty last quarter onslaught from the Lions to do so, and St Kilda kept their 2007 hopes alive by edging out the wooden spoon favourites Richmond.
The round approaching promises more in the way of Big Occasions- James Hird is due to play his 250th, Adam Ramanauskas is making a comeback from cancer that rivals McCartney's for pure courage and guts, while Ben Cousins will also return from his much publicised absence from the game in coming weeks if not this one. Can their teams lift to meet the expectations generated by the buzz? How will their opponents react? Find out back here next week when we discuss Round 14.